Americas: Amcor designs PET beer bottles

Amcor has designed New Age’s Salzburg craft beer PET bottles with a crown metal cap, replicating the standard glass bottle.

The PET containers are a replacement for glass during the filling and capping process, withstanding the internal pressure and high-heat conditions of the tunnel pasteurization process.

“PET bottles offer design advantages over glass while being lighter weight, more easily and safely portable, and unbreakable, and provide the required barrier protection,” said Rodolfo Salles, research and development manager for Amcor in Brazil.

Amcor uses an oxygen scavenger barrier additive to prevent oxygen ingress and egress, providing up to four months of shelf life.

The bottle is compatible with existing recycling streams and is 100% recyclable.

The lightweight containers also significantly reduce transportation costs, and energy and carbon dioxide emission reductions along the supply chain.

New Age introduced the new beer packaging format at the Amcor stand during the Fispal Tecnologia show in June 2019 in São Paulo, Brazil and has undertaken a pre-market trial in select cities in the state.